Steve  discovered the "secret"  of Grants.gov submission  problems.  Most
errors are just random.  Try  one time, and fail.  Try another time and
succeed.  Call the help  desk and  get  told a myth.  Monday we got  the
Myth that you had to use just one version of Adobe for downloading, filling
in and submitting.  Today one of our staff got the Myth that you can use
only Internet Explorer.  Earlier on the listserv I read the Myth that you
cannot use Adobe 9 for some applications.

I am afraid that  OMB  and agencies think the problems with Grants.gov are
just server related -- add more servers -- The Big Burst and problems will
be solved.

Instead, the biggest problem is in the programming.  There are too many
false errors.   Too many cryptic error messages that lead us to call and
jam up the help desk, while they take our names and phone numbers and DUNS
numbers and then give us a myth.  We often think the help we get works
because we close all of our programs  and restart our browsers and download
a new version of Adobe, or re-do the application and resubmit and it goes
in.  It would have probably gone in anyway, even with out all that extra
work.  It's  mostly just random.

We are submitting the same application multiple times thus clogging the
band width and making it _seem_ as though there needs to be more, new
servers.  We did not have this problem with PureEdge (but lots of others
with the forms themselves).  Thus the new problems came with Adobe, and it
must be, sad to say, with the company  that installed the Adobe based
system.

This concept is reinforced in our minds when we consider that the Adobe
system was supposed to be live in April of 2006, but did not come up until
November, 2008.  Almost none of the 20 some forms management issues that
have been brought up are yet addressed.  For example, we still cannot print
the whole application, and worse, now, only one budget year gets printed.

Anyway, being in "Help Desk Hold Land" so long this week has given me too
much time to think about all of this.  I keep thinking that if OMB wants to
fix things, instead of going back in time to the bad old days of "every
agency goes it own way"  why don't they ever ask us users what we want.  I
have heard that the current Administration considers Grants.gov to be a
Bush initiative, and thus needs to be changed.  They are so shortsighted
that they do not realize it is an initiative of the Grants Submitting
Community.  We have been seeking this since the Clinton administration, if
not earlier -- remember the Federal Commons that we all wanted?

Anyway, please do not get down on the idea of One Form, One Portal, and One
System.  Do we want to go back to paper submissions, or even emailing them
to agencies.  Do we want Education's eGrants, the NIJ system, INSPIRES,
FedConnet or its evil twin IIPS, or even FastLane unless it lets us keep
our data.  It is true that we are going through a bad time with the current
version of programming with Grants.gov.  I hope we can just throw out the
bath water, and get a fresh tub.

Bob
Robert Beattie
University of Michigan
734 936-1283
By the way, if any of you have heard any Myths from the help desk, please
pass them along to me, directly, xxxxxx@umich.edu   I was thinking of
doing a poster session at the FDP of these.

On Wed, 8 Apr 2009 15:14:42 -0700, "Hunter, Steve :LPH SUP-LRS"
<xxxxxx@LHS.ORG> wrote:
> Thank you to everyone who responded to my plea for help.  Acrobat Pro 9
> still has some compatibility issues apparently.  However, I took the same
> completed formset to my laptop, and using Reader 9.0 -- that's the Reader
> 9.0 not Acrobat Pro 9.0 --  had NO problem submitting and getting
> confirmed.
>
> This listserv is great!  It's wonderful to be able to tap such a source
of
> expertise!  I had lots of prompt responses to my post -- even after 5pm
> Eastern.
>
> Regards,
> Steve
>
>
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